MargaritaVille
by Kyra4
Summary: Some people claim that there's a woman to blame... Dramione, COMPLETE
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Harry Potter & Co. (even my ever-beloved Draco - and it's DRACO I love, not Tom Felton: blasphemy, I know) belong to J.K. Rowling. MargaritaVille belongs to Jimmy Buffet. I get no compensation for writing about either except for reviews. Though I _do_ love reviews... hint, hint.)

_Prologue: in which we find Draco in self-imposed exile in the tropics, attempting to fuck Hermione out of his system, with only limited success._

00000

(A/N: so here's the story. It all started when I put my cell phone through the laundry in the pocket of my jeans. Needless to say, I very shortly found myself needing a new cell phone. I ended up finding a great used one (God Bless Craigslist) which I absolutely adore because it's even pinker than my last one. It's that sugar-sweet, bubble-gum-and-cotton-candy shade of pink that I have loved all my life but that I can neither wear (because I am an adult) nor decorate my home with (make that a married adult…cotton candy pink is not a big favorite with the hubby, go figure.) So I accessorize with it. Anyway, I loved my new, used phone enough even before it actually _rang_ – and then I discovered that the ring-tone is Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. Okay, now I have a bubble-gum pink phone that plays Margaritaville every time it rings!? Best. Phone. Ever. Yes, I'm often ridiculously easy to please. Anyway, almost immediately this little plot bunny insinuated itself in my brain and hasn't gone away days later, so… I had to sit down and put it on paper. For those who are following TTB and DCL, yes those are still in progress. It's just, this bunny would _not_ leave me alone. So anyway… enjoy. I don't see it as more than a 3 chapter fic, including this one, but we'll see where it goes. Hope you like!)

00000

00000

00000

He woke to stippled sunlight and shadow making lazy patterns on the rough-hewn timber ceiling. The low bed was in complete, rumpled disarray; sheets and coverlet heaped on the floor and one of his legs hanging awkwardly over the edge of the mattress. As for the rest of his body, it was hopelessly entangled, in a crazy jumble of naked limbs, with his latest meaningless fling.

What in the hell was her _name_ again?

He had been allowing this particular young woman to share his ocean-front cabana for over two weeks; an exceptionally long time, given his usual modus operandi. Five days was the longest any of her predecessors had lasted before being sent on her way with a generously padded purse and only the haziest of memories of the past few days, thanks to a skillfully cast _Obliviate _spell.

He would have been hard-pressed, if asked, to actually give a reason as to why he had allowed this latest conquest to very nearly put down roots in his little beachside cottage. It wasn't something he consciously thought about. _Sub_consciously, it was probably because, with her sleek blonde hair, dazzling yet fundamentally vacant blue eyes, and _severely_ limited vocabulary, she could hardly have been more different from…

From _her_.

The one who had sent him running halfway across the world in the first place.

The one of whom he wanted _no_ reminders, conscious or otherwise.

Even so, the time to cut this one loose was fast approaching. It had been clear from the beginning that she was a shameless gold-digger, and really he had no problem with that, no problem at all; money he had, in plenty, and he didn't mind using some of it to buy himself some pleasant, if rather vapid, company. That was not an issue; it never _had_ been. But now that a couple of weeks had gone by, she was clearly beginning to feel just a bit _too_ entitled, too… settled. So, it was just about time for her to be moving on.

And what in the hell _WAS_ her name again?

It was _something_ with a Mc.

McKenna? McKenzie? McKinley? Something like that. Something that just practically _screamed_ American. Damn yanks with their penchant for saddling baby girls with first names that were meant to be _last_ names. One of these days some bloody yokel was just going to get it over with and actually name his daughter MacDonald's.

And if, down the line, she ended up looking halfway decent, he'd be perfectly happy to shag her too.

He turned his head to regard his sleeping bedmate. A broad band of sunlight fell across her naked torso, revealing the swell and curve of a pair of somewhat _too_ perfect, surgically enhanced breasts. There was a light, salt-tinged breeze from the window, which had been left wide open all night, the gauzy curtains thrust carelessly to one side (this girl was a bit of an exhibitionist, and he had no issues with that, either) and her nipples were pink and hard in the pale morning sun.

He realized three things at once; he was thirsty as hell, his head was pounding fit to burst (he'd gotten a little too friendly with the tequila last night… again), and he was sporting an erection that was actually painful in its intensity.

Ah, right. Now he remembered. He'd been dreaming again, dreaming about -

_Nothing bloody nothing, damn it._

Okay, fine. About nothing. But that didn't solve any of the three aforementioned problems. Well, one of them at least could be addressed without having to so much as leave the bed. He rolled up onto his knees – even hung-over, he was possessed of an almost preternatural litheness and grace – grasped his still-slumbering companion by the hips, yanked her sleep-warm body to him… and simply drove himself in, straight and deep and sure.

Her eyes, the color of the sea just outside the window, flew open wide, and as her lips parted to utter a small, shocked, protesting cry, he sealed them decisively with his own.

And then there was no more thinking.

And that was just fine with him.

.


	2. Chapter 2

She pouted at him as he left the bed. It was an expression she had honed to an art form. He supposed it must charm some men.

It didn't charm him.

"That was too rough, Draco," she complained prettily. "I didn't like it."

He glanced over at her and was mildly surprised to actually see tears standing in her aqua-colored eyes. Huh, maybe he _had_ gone a little hard on her. He wasn't a small man in… that department, and he hadn't been gentle in the least. Then he gave a mental shrug. He wasn't keeping her here against her will; she was free to leave at any time. And rough or not, he was giving her _exactly_ what she was after – he knew perfectly well that what she wanted more than _anything_ was to get knocked up by him.

Bearing his child, even if he _didn't _do the 'honorable' thing and actually marry her, would still provide her with a lifelong ticket to easy street. Because of course, she reasoned, he would care for the child… and that would entail caring for the mother as well.

A shameless gold-digger, without a doubt. And she had no idea that he was taking any precautions whatsoever. Draco Malfoy and a little product called a condom had never made one another's acquaintance. And so every single time he exploded within the tight confines of her body, she was fervently praying that _this_ would be the time that would make her wealthy for life.

Good thing she had no idea what a contraception spell was… or that he was exceptionally skilled at casting them.

Dumb Muggle.

He crossed the room to the bureau and grabbed his wallet off the top of it. Flipping it open, he pulled out the first Muggle credit card he saw, and tossed it onto the bed beside her.

"That should make it all better," he drawled sarcastically; noting, with raised eyebrow, how quickly and completely her face lit up. "Enjoy yourself today. We have dinner reservations at eight. I'm going for a swim."

And without another word or glance in her direction, he pulled a pair of swim trunks out of the bureau's top drawer and headed for the door, stepping into them as he went.

OOOOO

He paused for a moment on the front porch, looking out at the ocean. The cottage was nestled where the palm trees met the sand, and overhead the broad, flat leaves of the palms shifted and rustled ceaselessly in the breeze. This was what had been making the stippled patterns on the ceiling inside. Through the open window, he heard the shower turn on.

For a self-imposed exile of indefinite length, he could hardly have chosen a better spot. This place really was paradise… or at least, it could have been, had it only been a different woman stepping into the shower right n –

_Stop it. Stop it stop it just fucking stop it._

_She didn't want you. She's there, you're here, and that's bloody well the end of it._

Two or three charmingly weathered steps led down to the sand, which would be hot later in the day, but was still cool against the soles of his feet this early in the morning. He struck off across the beach, heading for the water's edge.

Coming out from under the shade of the palms, it was possible to see that his was not, in fact, the only cottage on this beach; there was actually a string of them, belonging to a nearby resort. They had been quite cleverly arranged, however; situated back among the trees in such a way that when you were actually _in_ one, you could neither see nor hear any of your neighbors. This left each occupant with the altogether pleasant sensation, as far as Draco was concerned, of being the only human inhabitant for miles around.

The white sand beach, too, was deserted at this early hour.

Well, so much the better.

He was in no mood for company just at present.

He waded straight in without pause until the water was roughly hip-deep, then dove.

He always loved the first instant in which the water closed over his head. It was about as close as he had ever come to a feeling of complete serenity, and about as close as he figured he was ever _likely_ to.

Or at least, that was usually how it felt. This morning, though… this morning, he just couldn't seem to get the old voices out of his head.

The old voices… their last night… their last _fight_.

God help him.

_((This is not up for debate, Draco. I've already accepted the position._

_For the last time, you're not taking that job, Hermione. It's dangerous and it's ill-suited to you and you Are. Not. Taking it.))_

His feet hit the sandy ocean bottom, raising a little underwater cloud of silt, and he pushed off with a vengeance; rocketing himself upward, breaking the surface and pulling in a deep breath of salt air. He had to stop this. Had to stop going over this again… and again… and again. Reliving it a thousand times in his head would not alter the outcome. _Nothing_ would alter the outcome. Ever.

_((I told you, I've already TAKEN – _

_Then you can just get your arse down to the Ministry and bloody well UN-take it! We're done arguing about this, Granger.))_

It was pointless to torture himself this way. Pointless and cruel. Draco Malfoy had been cruel to a great many people over the course of his life, but until just recently he had been wholly unaccustomed to actually being cruel to _himself_.

_Stop_, he begged his tortured mind. _Stop it stop it, __**please**_…

_((Like hell we are, MALFOY! I didn't come here to ask your permission. I came here to inform you of my decision, and I expected your support! It's not your PLACE to decide how well suited I am to this job, or any other for that matter. It's mine and _only_ mine; and if you can't accept what I've chosen to do with my life, then you obviously don't accept ME.))_

"_Fuck_," he snarled aloud, now standing chest-deep in the sea, raising both hands to shove his sopping wet, silver-white hair brusquely out of his eyes. "Get out of my head, Granger, god_damn_ it. I don't _need_ this shit anymore, what's done is done, so get the _fuck out of my head!_"

But then, of course, she'd made an absolute _habit_ of not doing what he'd asked of her. After all, that was precisely what their entire final blow-up had been _about_, wasn't it?

"Ugh." Rarely had so much misery and frustration ever been packed into a single syllable. Abruptly he dove again, straight into an oncoming breaker. Underwater, he opened his eyes, regarding the silent blue world in which he was immersed. It should have been peaceful.

It should have been. But it wasn't. He could find no peace in his surroundings when his mind was in turmoil like this. He shook his head, hard, sending his sugar-colored hair streaming like seaweed, then struck off for deeper waters, swimming with strong, sure strokes.

_((Hermione, goddamn it, you don't need ANY job, much less a risky one like that! Why don't you just let me take CARE of you, for Merlin's sake? I'd be happy to do it – I WANT to do it. You don't have to do this!_

_Are you serious? Malfoy? Are you actually SERIOUS? You think this is about MONEY?! As absurd as this may sound to you, there is more to life than your goddamn precious money, Malfoy! This job isn't about a paycheck! It's about doing something that makes a difference. It's about doing something that I WANT TO DO! And I'm not giving it up. So what's it going to be, Draco? Are you going to accept this, or not?_

_Accept that you're a bloody suicidal idiot? I can't do that, Granger. I'm sorry. I just can't.))_

He surfaced again. He was out past the breakers now, treading water. It was quiet out here; the only sounds were the pounding surf, the distant cry of seabirds, and his own breathing, harsh and loud in his ears.

When was this going to stop? Please God, it had to stop. It was driving him insane. He'd been down here in the tropics for a quarter of a year, spending just about every waking moment deep inside either a tequila bottle or one of his many flings – and on a few notable occasions, both at once – and still he couldn't shake this.

He couldn't shake _her_.

_((Then I don't suppose we have anything more to say to each other._

_No, Granger. I don't suppose we do.))_

Swimming was no good today. _Nothing_ seemed any good today. Swearing vehemently under his breath, he headed back in to shore.

"Go away, Hermione. Go away, you bitch. You made your choice and it wasn't me. So why can't you just go away, go away, and _leave me the hell alone!_?"

OOOOO

(A / N: For those who are wondering, a new chapter of Ties That Bind will go up next weekend. The next chapter of this should go up the weekend after.)


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N: So, my original assessment of this story was that it would be about 3 chapters long, but obviously the situation is nowhere near resolution, so now it's shaping up to be at least twice that. So no, this is _not _the last chapter.)

OOOOO

The sunsets were beautiful here.

And all the more so, Draco found, when one had a powerful drink in one's hand.

It was a few minutes past seven o'clock, and he was well down the beach now, at the resort bar. With an hour to go before his dinner reservations, he was already dressed in suitable, if somewhat casual clothes; khaki trousers that were rolled at the cuffs, and a well-worn, almost impossibly soft blue chambray shirt. A pair of leather flip-flops paid lip service – albeit just barely – to the resort's _no shoes, no service_ policy.

He was alone at a small table situated right at the edge of the terrace, just inches from the sand, enjoying the solitude, enjoying his drink, and watching the sun sink into the ocean in an awe-inspiring blaze of color.

It was the first time he'd managed to feel somewhat relaxed all day.

The waitress appeared to refresh his drink. She was a pretty young thing, probably not a day over twenty – Draco, having reached the unassailably urbane and sophisticated age of twenty-five, looked at her and saw a young woman who was still two-thirds child. She was a native, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and she graced him with a bashful glance and a sidelong smile as she placed a bowl of chips and salsa down on the table and then handed him his topped-off drink.

She fancied him, any fool could see that. She was not the only waitress here; to the contrary, the resort bar had a large wait staff; but somehow it was always, _always_ this girl who wound up tending to Draco personally.

How easily he could make her his next conquest, and the timing was right, too – he was _ready_ for a new bedmate. He had already decided that McKayla (that was his current fling's name, he'd finally remembered; McKayla) would be leaving in the morning.

Yet he hesitated.

This girl was deeply and inherently different from any of the long string of women who had paraded in and out of Draco's cabana up until now. _This_ girl, with her dark, exotic brand of beauty and shy, guileless charm, practically exuded innocence and naiveté.

She was probably a virgin. He couldn't be completely positive, of course, but he was pretty damn close. Also, he didn't get the impression that she was attracted to him for his money. Sure, he was a generous tipper, but one look in her dark, expressive eyes told Draco that this was not the reason she kept coming around.

She was actually interested in him for him. Or what she _thought_ she saw in him, anyway. And that was a problem.

Draco could _deal _with gold-diggers. He had no difficulty whatsoever in spotting them; usually fair-haired expatriates like himself, lounging on the beach in string bikinis, hoping the catch the eyes of men just like him – _moneyed_ men; and he had no difficulty either in taking advantage of them, because they were playing exactly the same jaded, mercenary game that he was.

They allowed him the use of their bodies; he allowed them the use of his Muggle credit cards, at least until he tired of them and sent them packing. It was simple. It was honest. It was fair. It was clean.

If he got involved with this girl, though, it would be something _completely_ different. She was young, inexperienced, and most assuredly _not_ a gold-digger. If he took her virginity, she would fall deeply and helplessly in love with him. It occurred to him, distantly, that this was an extraordinarily arrogant thing to think; and yet he knew, in a deep and fundamental way, that it was the truth.

And that could make things very messy indeed.

Because he was done with love.

He wasn't sure he was even capable of feeling it again, and even supposing he was, actually _allowing_ himself to do so was out of the question. Never, _ever_ would he render himself that vulnerable again.

Of course, when he was done with this young woman he would simply _Obliviate_ her like all the rest; it wasn't as if he'd be leaving her with any lasting scars. Still, _he_ would know – he would know the whole time, from their first kiss to the moment in which he broke through her virginity, to the time he wiped her mind clean of any memory of him, that he'd be taking advantage of her; taking advantage in a way he had never done with all the money-hungry trollops that had preceded her.

And he wasn't sure he could do that. Could shatter first her innocence, and then her trust that way. Not when she was so young. Not when he got the strong impression that she was a genuinely good and honest person. And not when her dark eyes looked so much like –

_STOP IT_.

_This has nothing to do with her, so stop it, for Christ's sake just stop it already_.

His hand tightened spasmodically on his glass, and he slammed it down on the table with nearly enough force to break it. Thankfully, the young waitress had already gone on her way and so did not happen to witness the sudden surge of violence to which he was subjecting his poor, unoffending beverage.

"What the _fuck_ do I have to do, _Obliviate myself?_" he whispered hoarsely. Leaning far back in his chair, he pressed his pale eyes shut, dragged in a deep, ragged breath, and raked both hands brusquely through his silver-white hair.

He stayed that way for several heartbeats. His body in a halfway reclining position; but the tautness of his facial features, and the fact that the heels of both hands were pressed hard against his temples, belied his casual pose.

Then, abruptly, he sat up straight again, already reaching for his drink as he reopened his eyes –

And that was when he saw the owl.

His heart plummeted.

00000

The owl was perched on the far edge of the table, shifting nervously from foot to foot, its talons clicking and clacking on the colorful Spanish tile tabletop, regarding him with cocked head and wary eye. It had obviously landed while _his_ eyes had been clenched shut.

Quite suddenly, his mouth went as dry as if it had been stuffed with sawdust.

He could barely swallow. He could barely _breathe_.

It was just a plain brown Ministry owl. The message could be anything; anything at all. But his intuition was screaming at him that this was something bad, bad, _badbadbad_. He was almost tempted just to shoo the creature away, without ever relieving it of the correspondence it bore. Just send it on its way with its message still intact; _return to sender_.

It had been months since he'd heard from anyone back home. And that was precisely how he liked it. That was precisely why he'd relocated in the _first_ place, damn it all.

He needed to lick his wounds in peace.

So he wanted, more than anything, just to send the owl away and get back to the business of drinking himself insensible.

But of course, he couldn't do it. This message, whatever it was, had been sent to him from half a world away. Whether good or bad _(it's bad, you bloody well __**know**__ it's bad)_, it must be important.

He had to read it.

So he swallowed hard and reached out a hand that was, he noticed somewhat detachedly, actually shaking a bit. The owl approached him in a series of small, distrustful hops. It seemed to want as little to do with him as he did with it. Bloody fucking nuisance bird.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, it allowed him to remove the little scroll it bore, and was off in a flurry of wings before he'd even managed to fumble open the tiny slip of paper. Usually Ministry owls could be counted on to hang around looking for some sort of compensation for a job well done; a coin, or failing that, at _least_ a tidbit of food.

Not this one. It had obviously sensed his agitated state and decided that it was better off just about anywhere else.

It was probably right.

There was a cold, sick knot of dread in his stomach as he unfurled the parchment and pressed it flat on the table. Acquaintances back home didn't wait four and a half months and then simply write to inquire about the weather. Huh-uh. He knew, he just _knew_, that whatever was written on that parchment was going to… was going to… to shake him right down to his foundation.

And he wasn't disappointed.

There were only a few, hastily scrawled words, but they knocked the air from his lungs and the color from his face just as surely as a good, swift Bludger to the gut.

This is what they said:

_Malfoy – _

_Hermione injured. In hospital._

_Asking for you._

_If you ever cared, come home._

_Now._

_- H.P._

_PS: I will try to keep Ron from murdering you._


	4. Chapter 4

(A/N: Happy July 4th long weekend to the other Americans out there! Happy reading to everyone!! :o)

00000

He shot to his feet so fast that he sent his chair toppling over with a crash… then stood rooted to the spot as if paralyzed, staring down at the parchment in horror with his heart thudding crazily in his ears, until he realized that he hadn't taken a breath since reading it and forced the pent-up air from his lungs in a harsh, explosive exhalation.

He was in an agony of indecision.

Should he stay or should he go? _Should he stay or should he go??_

_((If you ever cared, come home. Now.))_

Come home.

Now.

"_FUCK!_" he shouted suddenly, slamming a fist down on the table, upsetting his drink, which sloshed over his hand in an ice-cold, sticky, alcoholic wave. People at distant tables were now shooting him furtive, uneasy looks. Draco could have cared less. "Fuck, fuck _me_, why?? Why are you dragging me into this, Potter!?"

_((Hermione injured. In hospital. ASKING FOR YOU.))_

The writing, scribbled out in such haste that it was barely legible. That, more than anything else, indicated to Draco the seriousness of the situation.

Come home. If you ever cared. Come home.

"She did this to herself," he snarled, eyes still glued to the parchment. God help him, he just could not rip them away. "This is _exactly_ what I was trying to prevent. But what the fuck do _**I **_know, right? Far be it from her to bother listening to _me_. Why the _fuck_ should I go running to her now?"

Come home. If you _**ever**_ cared. Come home.

It was that phrase – it was clanging in his head like a bell. _If you ever… if you ever…_

He was breathing hard now, in short, sharp bursts. What had happened to her? How badly was she hurt? "I don't want to care," he whispered hoarsely. "Damn you, Granger, damn you to hell, you made your priorities clear and I wasn't one of them. Why are you asking for me _now?_ I don't – fucking – _want – to care!_"

But of course it wasn't that simple.

He didn't get to choose whether to care or not.

Either he didn't care… or else he did.

_What's happened to her? How badly is she hurt?_

_Come home. If you ever cared, come home._

"Shit." He ground the word out from between clenched teeth. Abruptly, forcefully, he shoved away from the table, turning toward the ocean as he did so and striking out onto the sand. A couple of dozen paces onto the beach he stopped again, staring out at the sea and sky with haunted eyes. The sun had nearly vanished now; the horizon was all shades of burgundy and indigo. A couple of early stars glimmered overhead.

He gradually became aware that his left hand was fisted at his side, the parchment crumpled within it; his right was clenched in his pale hair; clenched so hard he was hurting himself. Through a conscious act of will he forced his hand to release; to drop.

"Right, then," he said softly. "All right. All _right_." One final time, he smoothed out the parchment; read it over yet again. The message hadn't changed.

_If you ever cared, come home. Now._

And then –

_PS: I will try to keep Ron from murdering you._

Incredibly, a small, slow, grim smile twisted his lips.

"Give me an excuse, Weasley," he whispered into the tropical night. "I'm begging you. Give me an excuse. _Please_."

He turned back toward the resort, and saw that a small knot of people had gathered at the edge of the sand; patrons and wait staff alike, watching him anxiously. Muggles, the lot of them, of course.

That dark, grim smile was still on his face. If he Apparated now, there would be hell to pay… but having made up his mind, he was in no mood to waste time. And after all, what good was being the sole heir to a vast fortune anyway, if it couldn't be used to buy off a Ministry official or two? Or ten?

And _all_ Ministry officials could be bought. Some were more expensive than others, true enough; but people who couldn't be bought didn't _go_ into politics.

He took a deep breath, visualizing the lobby of St. Mungo's hospital in London, making it as solid and as real in his mind as he possibly could. Pressed his eyes closed. At the very last second, the feral little smile vanished from his face; his brow furrowed, and in a voice ragged with long-suppressed emotion, he half-whispered, half-groaned a single word:

"Hermione."

……_please please please be all right_.

Then he Apparated.

00000

He had a split second – just a heartbeat's worth of time – to give a cursory, distracted thought to everything he was leaving behind.

And to conclude that he was leaving very little – nothing, in fact – of substance.

A two-room cottage on the beach. Nice place, to be sure, but there were others like it on beaches all over the world. An attractive blonde companion (named McKayla – he was perversely pleased with himself for having remembered.) This particular make and model had even come fully equipped with a kinky exhibitionist streak… but even so, hardly unique. There were McKaylas everywhere there were beaches; again, all over the world. Clothes – good quality of course, but very few of them; not even enough to fill up a moderate-sized suitcase. Liquor – that was actually the loss that pained him most. He'd invested a good deal of money in some excellent quality stuff, and shit, what he wouldn't have given for a bottle of it in his hand right now. And one in his other hand.

And possibly one more tucked beneath his arm, for good measure.

After all, he was about to have to deal with Boy-Wonder and his ever-faithful sidekick, Boy-Poor-and-Spotty-and-Perpetually-Pissed-Off.

Well, he supposed he'd be perpetually pissed off too, if _he_ were poor and spotty.

Hell, he was pissed off already, and he was wealthy and reasonably attractive, and had been living in luxury on a tropical beach for nearly half of the past year. So how bad must it blow to be _Weasley?_

Then the lobby of St. Mungo's solidified around him, cutting off his train of thought.

00000

God how he hated this place; _hated_ it.

He'd spent enough time here in the aftermath of the war to never want to see it _again_. This was where he'd come to identify his father's body; Lucius had been brought here directly from the site of the final battle, dead on arrival, and so badly mangled that his only child had barely been able to recognize him.

This place, too, was where he'd come scarcely a week later to watch his mother die as well. On the day – the very _day_ – of her husband's interment, she'd been served notice that the Ministry had intended to prosecute her for war crimes.

That evening after dinner, she'd drunk poison.

If she had anticipated a quick or a painless end, however, she had been… well, to coin a phrase, dead wrong.

He had found her convulsing on the parlor floor and had rushed her here, only to be told that there was no antidote to what she had drunk, nothing that wizarding medicine could do for her at all.

In a room on the third floor he'd held onto her grimly as she'd wheezed, spasm'd, vomited, frothed, and choked her way into the long dark; turning an appalling shade of purple and swallowing her own tongue to top it all off.

It had been… a _ghastly_ death.

There had been friends, too… friends on both sides, since he'd been playing double agent toward the end. That was how he'd avoided his _own_ indictment by the Ministry; also how he'd gotten to know Hermione. As more than the bushy-haired, buck-toothed, know-it-all Potter worshiper from school, at any rate.

The Hermione he'd gotten to know toward the end of the war had been brilliant, fearless, driven. And if her hair was _still_ rather bushy, well, he'd learned to forgive that.

Because after all, she'd had to forgive some things about him, too. Starting with, for instance, the names he'd called her all through school.

He'd admired her ability to move past that… and was grateful for it, as well. She'd been the first of Potter's camp to really offer him a chance for a truce – and then slowly, tentatively, even a friendship.

And that combination – gratitude, admiration, and friendship – had developed, _matured_, into something more, almost before he'd truly understood what was happening to him.

Merlin, he had fallen hard.

There had been nothing he wouldn't have given her – nothing he wouldn't have _done_ for her.

And for a little while there, _for one brief shining moment_, he'd thought she'd felt the same.

And then she'd taken that position. A position with the Ministry that had, for all intents and purposes, murdered his mother. And a dangerous position, moreover… sorry, but Hermione was simply _not_ Auror material! She was meant to be the brains of an operation, working behind the scenes, not on the front lines. Never on the front lines! Not when there were still so many people out there, so very many supporters of Voldemort's failed cause, who had managed to elude wizarding law thus far. Who were nursing their wounds and positively _simmering_ in hatred; any one of whom would gladly give their right arm for a shot at the jumped-up little _mudblood_ who'd been so instrumental in the defeat of their Lord.

Why, she had to be on nearly as many hit-lists as Potter himself, and what had she done about it? Gone out _looking_ for the people who wanted to kill her! Naturally.

Anything. He'd have done _anything_ for her, and all he'd asked in return was that she refrain from deliberately placing herself in harm's way. Not an unreasonable request, he'd thought, considering that they'd been in _love_.

She had seen it differently.

Which had just proved, hadn't it, that they'd never actually been in love at all?

Oh, _he_ had been, sure.

But that didn't make it reciprocal.

God, what a fool he'd been.

And now he was back in this damned, damned, _double_-damned place, because of her, and he didn't honestly think that he had much of a soul left at this point, but if had to watch another person that he had loved _die_ here – if he had to watch _her _die here – then whatever poor, tattered remnant of a soul he still _might_ possess would be ripped right out of him for good and all.

And Weasley wanted to _murder_ him.

He gave a small, utterly mirthless snort of laughter.

Well, maybe that would be the kindest course of action, after all.

00000

All around him was the frantic bustle of wizarding society in crisis. A curse victim here, a hapless splincher over there; a whole team of hospital personnel rushing past with a prone body on a floating stretcher, shouting to each other as they went. A young witch trailed after them, her tearstained face looking just as lost and shocked and terrified as he'd felt on each of _his_ previous visits to this place. He supposed, distantly, that there must actually be some people who came here for joyful reasons; the birth of a child, for instance. But he had never seen that side of St. Mungo's before, and he wasn't seeing it today either.

Bloody awful place.

It was only by sheer force of will that he managed to compose himself, then approached the receptionist's station where he was directed to the fifth floor. Even so, he broke into a clammy sweat as he entered the lift and hit the button. It could have just been the shock of the temperature change – Apparating from a warm, sultry tropical evening directly into the falsely cool, dry air of the hospital. But if he were to be honest with himself, that wasn't all of it.

It wasn't even most of it.

It was not knowing what waited for him up above. Other than a violently angry Ron Weasley, of course; and a Harry Potter who had written to him, true, but only because Hermione had asked him to. A Harry Potter who would probably look at him as if he were something scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

Those were both certainties, and they weren't what was bothering him.

Oh all right, not _bothering_ him; scaring the living shit out of him.

_That_, of course, was Hermione.

What had happened to her? Why had she asked for him? And was she going to be okay?

_Please God Hermione, don't do this to me. You've done enough already. If I've come here to watch you die, it will kill me too._

_You have. To be. Okay._

_So I can tell you to piss the hell off, and then go right back where I came from._

The lift doors opened.

He swallowed hard.


	5. Chapter 5

Draco looked out into the fifth-floor lobby, his heart thudding in his ears.

The confrontation was almost immediate, and it was intense. There were only two other people _in_ the lobby, and he knew them both.

And didn't much care for either one.

Oh yes, he had a history with these two, all right. An entire school career of violent hatred and mistrust at Hogwarts. A brief, uneasy truce toward the end of the war, as they had finally begun to trust – and then rely on – the information he'd been bringing them from the Death Eaters' camp. And then the most gradual of thaws as his relationship with Hermione had first developed, and then progressed. As her 'Personal Protection Squad' as he'd taken to calling them had slowly come to realize that no, he wasn't out to use her or to hurt her; that he actually _cared_ for her and was in it for the long haul.

And then she'd pulled the plug.

Ironic that it had taken her friends so – bloody – long to believe that he wouldn't end up doing precisely that to _her_. Potter and Weasley had been convinced that _he'd_ be the one to rip her heart right out of her chest and grind it under his heel… and then, no sooner had they finally begun to relax and trust him with their precious Hermione, but she had gone and done it to _him_.

Of course, Potter and Weasley probably didn't see it that way. Potter's little post-script about Weasley's murderous inclinations pretty much spoke to that.

So Draco expected that now the three of them – Potter, Weasley, and himself – would be just about right back where they'd started from… and his very first glimpse of the two men in the fifth floor's smallish, rather dingy waiting area confirmed this.

And he couldn't even see Weasley's face.

The redhead's posture alone told Draco everything he needed to know.

Ron was standing with his back to Draco, apparently staring out of the room's only window. He was standing ramrod straight, the whole spindly length of him; he looked tense enough to snap, like a bowstring pulled too tight. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides, white-knuckled.

He didn't look around, but Draco knew that _Ron _knew he'd arrived.

Harry, on the other hand was seated in a shabby-looking armchair beside a large, but sad and wilted potted plant. He had his elbows planted on his knees, his head cradled in his hands. Draco couldn't tell whether his jade-colored eyes were open or closed; if open, the only thing Potter could be looking at was his own shoes, or else the badly scuffed floor.

Neither man's posture boded well for the situation… for Hermione.

They both looked as if, in their own different ways, they were bracing themselves for the worst sort of news.

And that realization paralyzed him. There was no telling how long he would have stood there, riveted to the spot, had not a woman's voice – cool, crisp, and magically amplified, suddenly spoken up in his ear;

"Fifth floor waiting room. Draco Malfoy, please step off the lift."

It startled him badly, bringing an oath to his lips – but it galvanized him into action. He stepped off the lift just as Harry raised his head, green eyes locking on Draco's grey ones.

"Potter," he snarled by way of greeting, "would you care to tell me exactly what the _fuck _is going on here?"

Over by the window, Ron muttered something darkly under his breath.

"What was that, Weasley?" Draco demanded, his _own _hands now beginning to clench.

"Leave off, Ron," Harry said tiredly, glancing in the redhead's direction, and then back at Draco. "Malfoy," he said simply. "I see you got my message."

"It said that Hermione's asking for me," Draco said shortly.

"Yeah, well… she was."

Ron finally spun around at this, his dark-blue eyes smoldering with belligerent anger. "She was delirious," he spat out. "She didn't know _what_ the hell she was asking for."

Draco felt his heart skip a beat. It was getting hard to breathe. Delirious? Christ, how serious _was_ this?

And why – "why the hell are you –" he actually had to pause, swallow, and compose himself before he could finish – "why are you talking about her in the _past tense?_"

Harry raked a hand through his dark hair, which was as disheveled as ever. He looked a degree or two past exhaustion. "She, um, she took a turn for the worse a couple of hours ago. The healers are working on her now."

_Shit. Oh, shit shit SHIT. I came as fast as I bloody well could, Hermione, don't fucking DO this to me_…

"You don't sound like you expect her to recover." His voice was holding remarkably steady, considering how badly it wanted to crack, to break; to waver and rise toward hysterics.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Harry said dully. "It was an ambush. Some bastard hit her with a knife-edge curse. Some of the best healers _here_ are on her case, but…" he locked gazes with Draco, who saw that his eyes had gone as dull as his voice. "I just don't know."

"And what the fuck does it matter to _you_, anyway?" Ron snarled then. "Get out of here, Malfoy. Go back to wherever the hell you've been _hiding_, and work on your goddamn _tan_ some more, why don't you?"

You could have heard a pin drop then. Oh, no. Oh, mother-fucking _hell_ no. He had just traveled halfway around the world to discover that the woman he had once loved (_all __**right!**__ Shit! The woman that he __**still**__ loved, even though she'd basically told him to go to hell, there, fucking happy now!?_) was apparently at death's door – had been calling his name in some sort of… of… _fever_ state, and he _hadn't been there for her_.

And now Weasley was _calling him out!?_

He was going to rip that spotted bastard a new one.

Harry saw the explosion building behind Draco's eyes – looked from him to Ron and back again – and sighed. "I've been awake for something like thirty-six hours straight. I am too – bloody – tired to even _try _to referee this adolescent bullshit, you two. So go on – have at each other. I'm going to get some coffee."

Draco watched him leave the room with mild surprise.

_So much for his promise of trying to keep Weasley from murdering me_.

Not that he was remotely worried, you understand. Weasley was all mouth – _always_ had been – with very little substance to back it up.

And he had just mouthed-off to the wrong person, under the _wrong_ bloody circumstances.

"Look here, Weasley," he growled, advancing into the room, gray eyes practically shooting off sparks of rage, "I did not run off and fucking _hide_, all right? I only left because Hermione told me to! I'd have done _anything_ for that goddamn infuriating woman! _She's_ the one who decided she didn't want my bloody interference in her life – she cut _me_ loose, not the other way around!"

"That's because you were trying to control her," Ron said heatedly. "She wanted you to back the hell off and trust her to make her own decisions; she didn't want you to drop off the face of the _earth!_ You should have _seen_ her when you left – the damage you did! She hardly got out of bed for three days – she hardly ate for three _weeks_, until she got lightheaded and passed out at work! She was devastated, Malfoy – she hasn't been herself _since_. And what the fuck have _you_ been doing all this time!? Here you come waltzing on back with your suntan and your flip-flops and you neck covered in goddamn _love bites!_"

_Oh, shit_. Draco had to make a conscious effort not to raise his hand to the line of his jaw, where McBlondie had marked him rather enthusiastically the night before. _Didn't I vanish those?!_

"I know that Harry was just doing what he thought best, but _I _think his judgment was severely clouded when he sent you that message," Ron was continuing. "You don't belong here, not after what you did to her. You're not fit to breathe the same air as Hermione!"

Draco's mind was positively reeling from everything Ron had just told him about the ways in which his departure had affected Hermione, but hell if he was going to let Weasley _know_ it. He pasted the coldest sneer he could manage onto his face.

"Well, if what Potter said about her condition was accurate, maybe she _won't_ be breathing the same air as me for much longer," he spat, even though saying such a thing hurt him, in an almost physical sense. It hurt Ron too – he actually staggered as though Draco had struck him, going paler than parchment beneath his freckles.

"And you know what, Weasley?" Draco plunged on, "if that's the case, she did it to _herself_, and with plenty of help from you! I was trying to _control _her? I didn't trust her _judgment?_ You bet your spotted arse I questioned her judgment when she told me she was taking that job! And look where it landed her – _right here!_ This is _exactly_ what I was trying to save her from. And it could have been prevented if you and Potter had backed _me_ up instead of falling all over each other to kiss her arse like usual! _You're so __**smart**__, Hermione. You're so __**brave**__, Hermione. You're the best at whatever you try, Hermione. Don't listen to that wanker Malfoy, he's just trying to control you, Hermione_. Well fuck you, Weasel, I hope you're happy with where she is now, because _YOU HELPED PUT HER THERE!_ And I may have a lot on my conscience, but _at least I don't have that_."

He was actually panting now, panting as if he'd run a marathon. The force of his words, and of the raw fury _behind_ them, had almost knocked him off his feet. Ron, for his part, stood staring at Draco open-mouthed; shocked into immobility, for the moment at least, by the blond man's words.

They stared at each other across the hospital waiting room for a long, spiraling moment.

Then, at virtually the same instant, as if in response to some kind of subliminal cue, they both went for their wands.

"_Accio wands!!_"

Draco spun toward the voice even as his wand flew from his hand. And there she was.

Hermione.

_Shit_.

She stood in the doorway at the end of the room, the one that Harry had exited in his quest for coffee. She was leaning against the doorframe and clutching it with one hand, as if in an effort to stay upright; her other hand was stretched out to catch his wand – and Ron's.

She was clad in a pale blue hospital gown that hung loosely to mid-thigh… and from the look of it, nothing else. Her hair was a wild, jumbled mass of dark curls tumbling halfway down her back, and her _skin_… she was white as a sheet, white as a ghost.

She caught both wands neatly; then looked steadily from him to Ron, and back again.

"Don't you _dare_ hurt each other," she snapped, sounding for all the world just like her bossy old Hogwarts self again, as Draco and Ron both gaped at her in astonishment. "I heard you all the way down the hall."

It was surreal. Draco almost expected her to add that she was a prefect, and if they woke the younger children she would report them both to their respective heads of House.

Then she looked straight back at Draco, locking her gaze with his. Her eyes clouded over. The wands slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. "I think I need to lie down now," she said, and he was already running as her knees buckled, spilling her floorward.

He was too far from her, though, to reach her in time.

It was Harry that caught her, having materialized behind her in the doorway, dropping his coffee – it spilled from its mug in a dark, liquid arc – and diving for Hermione as she fell like a Seeker going for a snitch.

He caught her round the middle and a heartbeat later was sitting on the floor with Hermione, now apparently deeply unconscious, cradled in his lap.

Draco hurled himself to his knees beside them, his head spinning, his heart pounding so hard that it felt like it was trying to jump out of his chest. Hermione was so pale and so still, so very _still_ – and healers were approaching now, at a run and Ron, having recovered his wits, was lighting into them, using all of his not inconsiderable lung-power; what the hell kind of a hospital _was _this? He'd been told there were healers working on Hermione, _actively working_ on her, so how in Merlin's name had she gotten all the way to the waiting room on her _own!?_ This was _completely _unacceptable, this was _negligence_, he was going to _report_ this, and on and on, blah blah blah.

The senior healer present was wringing her hands and looking on the verge of tears as she tried to explain that she'd only left for a moment, just one moment to run down the hall for another vial of blood replacement serum, Hermione needed it badly and she'd been resting comfortably in bed, she'd appeared to be sleeping quite soundly in fact, and it was only a moment, a necessary errand, really, Mr. Weasley, please!"

It didn't end there, of course. Ron was still shouting, the healer was still pleading; words were flying fast and furious in all directions. But Draco wasn't hearing them anymore. The noise, yes, he was aware of the noise and the commotion, marginally at least… but the words, no. _They_ were breaking and receding like waves on the shore; like the wind through the palms on his private stretch of beach. They had become simply… background noise.

There was one thing and _only_ one thing that was holding his attention anymore, and that was Hermione. Lying so pale and still in Harry's arms, her dark lashes throwing dusky shadows across her wax-white face… and her loose blue hospital gown, the color of the tropical sky, now badly askew. Slightly ruched up and pulled tight around her middle so that he could see…

He could see…

Oh, God help him. Oh God, please.

He actually had to fight back the urge to throw up as the full realization of what he was looking at hit him.

_Sweet Merlin, I didn't know. I didn't KNOW_.

The healers were lifting her away from Harry now, preparing to whisk her back down the hall, and _still_ he couldn't tear his eyes away from her body; her stomach. She wasn't huge, not yet; she could only _be_ five months along, maybe six at the very most… but there was no question, no question at all. Hermione always _had_ been, after all, the one woman capable of driving him so far out of his mind that he forgot all about bleeding little details like contraceptive spells.

She was pregnant.

She'd been pregnant when he'd left. The _entire time_ he'd been licking his wounds in the tropics; drinking, and swimming, and brooding, and _fucking_ the days and weeks and months away, she'd… she'd been…

_I didn't know. So __**help**__ me, I didn't know. They can't hold it against me when I didn't fucking KNOW!_

And yet they could. Of _course_ they could. _That_ was why Weasley'd wanted to kill him, it was plain as day now that he actually understood what had happened. What he was guilty of, whether he'd been aware of it at the time or not.

Leaving her behind. Leaving her _alone_. Pregnant.

He watched her all the way down the hall – the healers had conjured her up a floating stretcher – until he couldn't see her anymore. It was only once they'd turned a corner that his dazed, suddenly wounded eyes met Harry's.

"Potter," he croaked, and for a long moment that was all. He seemed unable to gather his wits about him well enough to actually form even the simplest sentence. The best he could manage, several heartbeats later, was –

"Did… did you, um… Potter, did she… was… was that – "

Harry interrupted him there. "Malfoy," he said quietly, _calmly_, his green eyes locked on Draco's own, "before you say anything else, know this. If you even think of asking me whether that's _your _child she's carrying – if you dare insult her that way – I will hit you square in the jaw. Do we understand each other?"

Draco opened his mouth – then closed it again. He almost wished someone _would_ hit him in the jaw; that might help to dissipate the feeling of horrified surreality that had descended upon him. But the key word there was _almost_. And Harry wasn't speaking in almosts. Harry was speaking in absolutes; he was dead serious.

In any event, that wasn't the question Draco had been trying to ask.

He tried again as Harry got to his feet and then offered him a hand, pulling him up after. "Potter, I don't… what was… _why?_ You wrote me that message, why… why the fuck didn't you _tell me!?_ Why didn't you write me _months_ ago, if she wouldn't? This is… I can't… you obviously had the means to get hold of me when you wanted to, so _fuck_, Potter, _WHY??_

Harry was leaning back now, heavily, against the wall; arms crossed over his chest, looking more tired even than he had when Draco'd first set eyes on him. He looked almost as pale as Hermione had; almost on the verge of collapse _himself_.

"Don't you get it, Malfoy?" he asked with weary simplicity. "I didn't tell you – I _couldn't_ tell you – because I'm not Hermione. _It wasn't mine to tell_."

"And still you let her take that position," Draco said disbelievingly, his voice scarcely more than a whisper now. His legs were barely supporting him, and he found himself slumping against the wall opposite Harry, until his posture was nearly a mirror image of Harry's own. "Even once she started to _show_, you let her continue with it until… until… tell me something, Potter. What if she had _died_ in that attack? Would you have told me then? Or would I never have known at _all?_"

Ron, for his part, had fallen into one of the waiting room's battered-looking chairs and was watching this exchange passively, appearing completely drained by everything that had happened, quiet for once in his _life_, Draco thought detachedly as he watched Harry, waiting for an answer.

Finally, in such a low voice that Draco had to strain to hear it, Harry said, "you left, Malfoy. _You_ left. That was your decision. If you hadn't left, then you wouldn't have needed me or anyone _else_ to tell you. But you did. You had a stupid little spat – the sort that ordinary couples work through all the time – and you _left_. And really, that's all there is to it."

Harry looked away.

It was all the answer Draco was going to get – and all the answer he needed. Harry never would have told him. Ron never would have told him. It didn't appear as if _Hermione_ had had any intention of telling him. If it hadn't been for this crisis, he might _never_ have known.

Because he'd left.

That rolling wave of sickness came back, ten times stronger in the wake of this knowledge. Shoving off the wall, he managed to stagger over to the large potted plant in the corner of the room. The poor thing looked as if it had suffered a number of indignities over the course of its sad, waiting room life, and now Draco added one more.

Falling to his knees, he was violently ill into the pot.


	6. Chapter 6

(A/N: Just the epilogue to go, after this. That should be up next weekend :o)

00000

Draco rolled over, groaned, and rubbed at his eyes

Bloody awful hospital cot… sleeping on it was about as comfortable as trying to sleep on a racing broom. In fact, Draco was pretty damn sure that some of the costlier, higher-end broomsticks might actually be _more_ accommodating than this… this… _wretched_ contraption.

He struggled into a sitting position, swinging bare feet onto the floor and knuckling grit from his eyes, yawning hugely. Three days he'd been here – three days spent sitting in the chair beside her bed, or staring restlessly out the window, or pacing the length and width of the small hospital room like a caged animal.

Three days that he had not once set foot outside St. Mungo's – he had gone no farther from Hermione's room than the cafeteria on the second floor.

Three days since he'd changed his clothes. Brushed his hair. Had a _shower_ – the closest he'd come had been splashing cold water on his face twice a day in the public restroom down the hall. Which was, by the way, a piss-poor substitute, thank you very much.

Three days since he'd shaved – his stubble was so fair as to be barely noticeable, visually, at least – but his face _felt_ like sandpaper.

Three days he'd spent watching Hermione's pale, unmoving form in the sterile, white hospital bed; three days of agony with the fate of the woman he loved – and his child, sweet Merlin, his _child_ – hanging in the balance.

_That_ had been brought home to him a few hours after he'd arrived, when the senior healer on the case had approached him, confirmed his paternity of the unborn child, and then asked him which one would he prefer they saved – mother or infant – should it come to that?

He had snarled that if she didn't feel herself capable of saving them both, she should tell him right (_the fuck_) now, so that he could get someone _competent_ on the case. But that didn't stop her question from twisting round and round like a knife in his gut, teasing and tormenting his every waking moment from then on.

Three days of asking himself, _Hermione or my child? Which one would I choose? Hermione or my __**child**__?_

And three hellish nights of sleeping – if you could call it that – on this torture device that passed for a cot.

He stood and stretched. His back hurt like a bastard… every morning it hurt worse. If he had to sleep on that _god_damned cot much longer, he was convinced that one of these days he was simply going to wake up _paralyzed,_ damn it all to hell.

Three days and three nights… it felt like three _years_. And you know what? The thing about it was, that it was _okay_, actually. Draco understood that this was his penance. And he would stay here for as long as it took.

As long as it took for Hermione to be okay.

He hadn't understood that at first, of course. He had been angry the day he'd arrived. No, scratch angry, he'd been abso-fucking-lutely furious. Furious with Potter and Weasley, furious with the healers, and – once the crisis of her hallway collapse had passed and her condition had stabilized – furious with Hermione. More furious with her than with all the others combined, in fact.

How could she do this to him, _how?_ What the fuck made her think she had the right? Not contacting him as soon as she knew – continuing with a dangerous profession – what in the hell was the _matter_ with her!?

The anger had built in him the first day and night like a fever… and like a fever it had broken, sometime in the dark, pre-dawn hours of the second day.

That was when he had realized, in a sudden, stark flash of clarity as he'd stared at her motionless figure in the bed, illuminated by that dim half-light all hospitals possess in the watches of the night, that the person he was the angriest with was himself.

And that he might never get the opportunity to apologize.

With that final realization, he had dropped his head into his hands and cried like a child – cried until dawn had streaked through the room's sole window. The tears had washed him clean of that awful, festering anger, that anger like sickness… and that was when Draco had first begun to understand that he was doing penance here. And that he would _stay_ here no matter what. He would stay until Hermione woke up.

At least his unrelenting vigil had won him some grudging respect from Harry and Ron.

They spent quite a bit of time in her room as well, but not a whole _day_ at a time, and they never spent the night. They had both returned to work – working overtime, in fact – in their obsession to bring the person responsible for Hermione's condition to justice. He had escaped amid the chaos he'd caused by nearly murdering a pregnant Auror… which was, of course, exactly what he'd intended when he had done it. But Harry and Ron were closing in. Like Draco, they were hardly eating, hardly sleeping, hardly _living_ in any meaningful sense… nor would they resume their ordinary lives until their quest for justice was complete.

That was their mission, and Draco approved of it. Just as staying with Hermione, watching over her every moment of every day, had become _his_ mission. And _they_ seemed to approve of that, too.

At the end of their last visit, Harry had even clasped Draco's shoulder, briefly but hard, just before he'd left the room.

And Draco hadn't minded at all. He'd actually been grateful for that bit of human contact… of warmth. He still had issues, _big_ issues with some of Harry and Ron's decisions and conduct regarding Hermione these past few months, and he understood that _they_ still had similar issues with him. None of them had truly done right by her… and all of them were feeling it keenly. But that could all be worked through later. The only thing that mattered now was Hermione's recovery; the three of them were in complete agreement on that.

And so a fledgling truce had been born.

00000

Draco checked his watch; 6:23 in the morning. Harry had said last night that he might stop by between nine and ten with coffee, a scone and today's _Prophet_. That was something to look forward to, but it was still a ways off… and early as it was, further sleep was out of the question. That cot was gonna kill him.

He stumbled groggily down the hall to the bathroom, splashed water on his face in what had become his morning routine, and stared at himself in the mirror over the sink.

He looked like bloody hell warmed over.

Bloodshot eyes; lank, dirty hair; rumpled, slept-in clothing. For the second time that morning, he groaned. Pressed his eyes shut for a long moment, then splashed his face again. It _helped_… but not by much.

Back in Hermione's room, he folded up the cot and stood it flat against the wall. Spent half an hour pacing. Fifteen minutes staring out the window. Ten minutes watching the healers give Hermione her morning check-over. Twenty minutes pacing again. Which made it more or less just like every other morning since he'd arrived here. The degree of exhaustion he felt today, though, that was different. He couldn't bear the thought of lying down on that god-awful cot again, but the exhaustion was dragging him down like quicksand, pulling him under. He collapsed into the armchair next to Hermione's bed and closed his eyes. Ten minutes later, in only the vaguest, most distant state of consciousness, he felt himself sliding out of the chair and onto the floor. He didn't fight it.

The floor was more comfortable than the _cot_ was, at any rate.

00000

He woke when a bar of sunlight hit him full in the face, and bolted upright with a startled oath. The sun didn't shine full in Hermione's window until mid-afternoon. Merlin, how long had he been _out?_

A light, hospital-issue blanket was pooled around his waist, which added to his puzzlement. He was _damn_ sure he hadn't covered himself… shit, he'd basically _fallen_ off his chair onto the floor; he hadn't had the capacity to do _anything_ except maybe cushion his head on an arm.

Then he noticed the nightstand next to Hermione's bed. There was a scone there, and a coffee cup; he didn't need to touch it to know that it was stone-cold. And a copy of the Daily Prophet, on top of which rested a Ministry of Magic business card, face down. Across the back of the card, Harry had scrawled a succinct message:

_Malfoy – I didn't wake you. You looked like you needed the rest. –H.P._

"Ugggnnh." He scooted backward until he was sitting against the wall, wadding up the blanket and shoving it off to one side as he did so. A raging thirst gripped him, and he reached for the coffee cup with one hand as he shoved his sleep-tousled hair back out of his eyes with the other. He knew drinking the stale, cold coffee was not the best idea, but was too thirsty to care; he swilled it deeply anyway.

He gagged and almost spat. Cafeteria coffee was sub-par at the best of times, and _this_ was… beyond foul. He managed to swallow it, but sputtered mightily. "Ugh! Merlin, dis_gus_ – "

"Draco?"

He choked all over again, head shooting up to take in Hermione on the bed.

She was looking straight back at him, her dark eyes drowsy, but clear.

"Hermione," he croaked. "Oh God, thank you. _Thank_ you."

Her brow furrowed into a tiny frown as she turned onto her side and propped her cheek on her hand, the better to study him.

"You look awful. What are you doing here, Draco?"

He just stared at her for a long moment, drinking her in, too overwhelmed to compose a reply. He was just so swamped with relief – shaking with it, lightheaded; almost in tears.

"Draco?" She struggled up onto her elbows, shaking her hair back, out of her face. Her eyes traveled to the wadded-up blanket, then back to him. "Have you been sleeping on the _floor?_ Why are you here?"

Draco tried to speak – failed – swallowed hard. He was still staring at her the way a hapless desert wanderer might stare at a distant oasis.

"Hermione." His voice, when it came, was hoarse; ragged with emotion. "Potter wrote me you were hurt. You asked him to, do you remember? That letter, it – it almost killed me. And then I got here and… Christ Jesus, woman, why didn't you _tell_ me? _Why?!_"

"Tell y –" Hermione's perplexed frown deepened for a fraction of a second, then cleared. "_Oh_." One hand went, absently, to cradle her stomach in that age-old subconscious gesture of pregnant women everywhere. "Oh, right."

Okay, he'd thought he was over the anger, but in that moment it took everything he had not to jump to his feet and start shouting.

"Oh, _right?_" He echoed her instead, in a surprisingly controlled voice. "That's all you can _say?_ Hermione, that's my child! When were you going to tell me!?"

"I just… it never seemed… like the right time."

"What about when you almost fucking _died!?_" And now his voice was rising in spite of himself. "That didn't seem like the right time?!"

"No, it didn't!" Her voice was gaining volume now too, and taking on that defiant cast he knew so well. "_Least_ of all then! I didn't think… I didn't want…"

She paused; gulped in a deep breath of air. Her eyes dropped away from him, and her next words came out all in a rush –

"I didn't want that to be the only reason you came back."

Draco just stared at her for a long moment, feeling sick with himself. Then he took a deep breath, pressed his eyes shut, and rubbed one hand slowly down his face from forehead to chin, letting his head fall back against the wall as he did so. When he opened his eyes again he was staring straight up at the ceiling.

"I've been an incredible bastard," he said softly, "haven't I."

It wasn't a question.

She smiled wanly. He caught it, just barely, out of the corner of his eye.

"I don't suppose I'm blameless either," she said.

"I'm sorry, Granger." He was still looking steadfastly at the place where the wall and ceiling met. "I only ever wanted to protect you."

"I know that," she rejoined. "I knew it _then_. I just didn't think I needed protecting."

Some deeply ingrained Slytherin need to goad and provoke made him ask, "And how about now?"

"Now I _still_ don't think I need protecting," she said with characteristic (Gryffindor) stubbornness, "but that doesn't change the fact that I'm glad you're here… even if you _do _look like hell."

Draco snorted. "You think I look bad now? You should have seen me when I got Potter's owl. Bloody cryptic message took years off my life. I was like a madman. Apparated in front of twenty Muggles, at least."

"You _didn't!_"

There it was again, her prefect voice, so prim and affronted that he couldn't help himself – for the first time in he couldn't _remember_ how long, he cracked a genuine smile.

He tilted his head so as to meet her eyes fully again. "Maybe closer to thirty," he said.

"Oh Draco, _no!_" Hermione's eyes were wide. "_Thirty _Muggles to track down and Obliviate!? Have you any idea the kind of chaos you must have caused the Ministry? I'm surprised they didn't revoke your Apparition license! And… oh, Merlin… the _fines!_"

In one fluid motion he was up off the floor and sinking down beside her on the edge of the bed. "Granger," he said quietly, and very deliberately, his pale eyes now positively blazing into hers, "_BUGGER. The. Fines._ I was scared for your _life_. And with reason. You have _got_ to promise not to do that to me again. Ever. _Please_."

She smiled a little ruefully. "I'll do what I can. I still don't appreciate anyone trying to make my decisions for me, and that includes you, Draco Malfoy. But this experience has… forced me to re-evaluate some things, and… I've reached the conclusion that even if _I _don't need your protection, well maybe… she does."

"She…?" Draco's pale eyes widened as the full impact of what Hermione had just said hit him. He had, all at once, taken on that quintessential dazed expression that is synonymous with expectant fatherhood.

"Yes," Hermione confirmed with devastating simplicity, "we're having a girl." And then, in a voice suddenly tinged with concern, "Draco, are you all right? You look ill."

"I'm not ill," he managed, albeit with some difficulty, "I – " he swallowed hard – "I'm adjusting."

There was silence for a long moment.

"Draco?" Hermione's voice was still tentative.

"Uhm?" He actually had to bring his eyes back into focus a bit.

"_Are _you all right with this? _Really?_"

"_This_ this?" he asked, still dazedly, gesturing toward her stomach.

She huffed an exasperated sigh. "Honestly, what do you _think _I'm talking about, the weather? _Yes_, this this. You're not regretting… I mean… are you…" her dark eyes were troubled, unsure. "Do you wish you'd just stayed away?"

"_Merlin_, no! Granger, what are you thinking!? I don't wish I'd stayed away longer; I wish I'd never gone!" He looked away again, staring off into a corner of the room. "It wasn't the answer," he said, speaking almost more to himself than to her. "It was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made."

"Draco, I _forgive_ you," she said quietly.

Still staring into the middle distance, his lips twisted suddenly and violently downward. "You've no idea what I've been doing all this while."

"Nor do I want to," she replied with calm authority. "It's water under the bridge, in any case. You're here _now_. You came when I needed you. _That_ tells me everything I need to know. I want you back in my life… in _our_ lives. And for whatever it's worth, Kingsley's offered me the opportunity to develop a new Ministerial branch strictly devoted to non-human rights, and I'm taking him up on it. An opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime, after all. It will make history. So… no more field assignments, effective immediately."

"Yeah?" Draco asked, trying – and failing – to disguise the immense relief in his voice. "So then… erm… what happens now?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I suppose we could just… start over."

"Huh." Draco's voice was meditative; his pale eyes still averted, and pensive. Then, abruptly, he turned back to face her.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he said. "I'm twenty-five years old, I graduated fifth in my class from Hogwarts Academy, Slytherin House; and I do occasional free-lance work for the Ministry. Mainly, though – " and here just a hint of his trademark smirk shone through – "I'm a man of leisure. Also, I've recently learned that I'm expecting the birth of a daughter."

A smile tugged the corners of her lips. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Malfoy," she said. "May I call you Draco? My name is Hermione Granger. I'm twenty-six years old, graduated _first_ in my class from Hogwarts Academy, Gryffindor House; I'm currently spearheading a new department at the Ministry. And as it happens, I'm expecting a daughter too. What a lovely coincidence, wouldn't you say?"

She offered him her hand.

He shook it.


	7. Epilogue

He woke to stippled sunlight and shadow making lazy patterns on the rough-hewn timber ceiling. The low bed was in complete, rumpled disarray; sheets and coverlet heaped on the floor and one of his legs hanging awkwardly over the edge of the mattress.

His head was pounding.

Merlin, did he need to find that bottle.

Fast.

He tumbled out of the bed, stubbed his toe hard on the nightstand, and did a strange kind of hopping dance for a moment, holding his injured foot in one hand and hissing breath through his teeth in an effort not to cry out. His sleeping companion never stirred.

He raked the room with desperate eyes. _Bottle… bottle… where did I leave that fucking bottle!?_

No sign of it in the cabana's tiny master bedroom. Damn it, _damn_ it. He stumbled into the only-slightly-larger living room-kitchen combo, giving all surfaces a hasty once-over, to no avail.

_The deck_. He must have left it on the deck. They'd been out there late last night, enjoying the breeze, the stars, and the pounding surf.

Outside were two ancient-yet-comfortable rocking chairs, flanking a low table. All three pieces of furniture had once been painted in bright tropical colors, but now were weathered to a gentle and uniform heather-grey by the salt air. This cabana sat closer to the breakers than the one he had inhabited before, during the time of his _previous_ self-imposed exile. And it fronted an entirely different ocean than had the last one. Already that time in his life was taking on the aspect of an only-vaguely-remembered bad dream.

And yes, there it sat, on the little rattan table; the bottle he'd been looking for. Thank Merlin. He grabbed for it, unscrewing the lid as he headed back inside.

He left the French doors open, letting the sea breeze in. It was invigorating, already clearing his head. Back in the kitchen he hurried, his thoughts bent on the woman sleeping in the next room.

Five minutes later he was on the move again, heading this time to what had been advertised as the cabana's "second bedroom" – in reality little more than a miniscule, sheltered nook set beside the main one. He was going to confront the reason for his far-too-early awakening, and source of his pounding head.

In a crib beneath the window lay his six-month-old daughter, crying in great, hearty gusts. As Draco bent over her, though, the cries subsided quickly to sniffles. She stared up at him with wide, tear-bright eyes the selfsame color as his own.

His pale eyes and Hermione's thick, dark hair; it was a striking combination. Six months old and already he was dreading the onset of her Hogwarts years – so many hormones, so little supervision. He made a brief mental note to begin some research on wizarding _day_ schools.

That was for another time, though.

"Hush, little girl," he murmured soothingly now, "hush, Victoria. You kept your mother up half the night already; what do you say we let her have a bit of a lie-in this morning? I think she's earned it."

He reached down for her and a pair of chubby little arms reached back up, mirroring him almost uncannily. A moment later he was carrying her through the living room and back out onto the deck, settling into one of the oversized rockers to give her her morning bottle. He'd let Hermione sleep as long as she wanted to, as long as she could. Maybe later they'd all swim together; Victoria already loved the sea.

Or, maybe not. If not today, they could swim the next day, or the next. There was no rush; they had time.

It hadn't been easy to get Hermione to agree to a month-long holiday, even if it _was_ their belated honeymoon, and now that they were here he intended to make the most of it he possibly could… and to his mind that included occasionally lazing an entire day away in bed.

Actually… that sounded just _luscious_, now he thought about it.

His lips quirked upward in a smile as he watched the ocean, fed his daughter, and contemplated a day spent in bed with his wife.

He had come full circle, and life was good.


End file.
